BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Eilis Ni Dhuibhne was born in Dublin in 1954. She was educated at Scoil Bhríde, Scoil Chaitriona, and UCD, where she studied English and Folklore. In 1978-9 she spent a year as a graduate student at the University of Copenhagen and in 1982 was conferred with a PH.D in Irish Folklore by UCD.

Eilis has written several collections of short stories, many novels, books for children, and plays for stage and radio. She has also worked as a script writer for RTE and TG 4. Her work has won many awards – including the Stewart Parker award for Drama, the Butler Award (American Association of Irish Studies) for Prose, several Oireachtas Awards for novels in Irish,  and three Bisto Awards for Children’s Literature.  Her novel, The Dancers Dancing, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and her collection of short stories, The Pale Gold of Alaska, was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.

Her books have been translated to German, Czech, Italian, Scots Gaelic, and her short stories to those and many other languages including French, Spanish, Slovenian, Russian.

Eilis worked as a librarian and archivist in the National Library of Ireland for many years. She has also taught Creative Writing at the Irish Writers’ Centre, Listowel Writers’ Week, and Trinity College, where she was writer in residence in 2005. She is currently Writer Fellow at UCD and teaches on the MA in Creative Writing there.

She has visited many countries as a writer, including  France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Sweden, Scotland, Wales, England, Canada, the United States and Australia.